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The Last Show with David Cooper

Bear Sightings on the Rise: Here's Why

19 Mar 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

3.389 - 31.624

The last show with David Cooper, where we utilize nonlinear reverse inverse backward thinking protocols. It sounds like this. Better stay inside because bear sightings are on the rise. If you've seen one, you're not alone. Many more people have, and we'll discuss why here with Dr. Cliff Redford, a veterinarian. It's vet life. That's the name of his podcast. It's vet talk or pet talk.

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We still haven't figured it out. Yeah, I get confused. Cliff, welcome in. Thank you. I think we have figured it out. I think that's the name of this segment.

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Chapter 2: Why are bear sightings on the rise?

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Vet Talk or Pet Talk. Vet Talk or Pet Talk. You are a vet. We talk about animal issues. You are a pet. We talk about pet issues. Perfect. Sure. There is a article that I'm reading that academics wrote, provided by Northwestern University in the U.S., about bear sightings. Yeah, there's a lot. And we're talking about the animals here.

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We're talking about the black bears and brown bears and whatnot. It's a real 90s joke right there. There you go. I didn't mean in the gayborhood. I meant the animal. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Though, I mean, wild bears are also welcome in the gay neighborhood. Well, are they? They're not really welcome anywhere.

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And that's the problem is we're having interactions, a lot more interactions all around the world. with bears and people. So this article started out telling a little story, as any good article does, to catch people's interest. And it told the story of this woman, Kim Ring, who moved into this beautiful dream home in rural Massachusetts in 2022. She had a chicken coop.

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She's trying to live sort of off the grid. And then she came out one day and her chicken coop was flattened, in her words, and there were feathers everywhere. It was a chicken carnage scene. And she did some searching around with her kids, which, you know, could have ended up pretty bad. And she ended up finding a mama bear and two cubs up a tree.

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Mama bears, whenever they're in the media, always seem to have two cubs. It's always the case. And yes, Mama Bear was chowing down on one of her chickens. Was it a chicken coop or was it a bear buffet?

Chapter 3: What story illustrates the impact of bear encounters?

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Is there a difference? There isn't in Massachusetts. Good, good comment there, David. That's the whole point. So in the last five years in North America, bear encounters with people have something like, it's not doubled, it's not quadrupled. What is it when it's three times? Thrupled? Tripled? Tripled. Tripled. That's the one. Tripled. Yeah, that's the one.

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Also welcome in any neighborhood, a little throuple every once in a while. So it's tripled and they're starting to say, you know, they're starting to ask why. In Japan, in 2025, they had a record 235 attacks. From bears on people, 13 people killed. It was so bad that the U.S. Embassy in Japan issued a travel alert to travelers coming from the U.S.

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about bear encounters, like on the official embassy website. That's how bad it got. There's a lot of people that travel to disaster zones and war zones and they sort of vacation. What's that called? I don't know, like extreme vacationing? Something like that. Tripled? Is it called tripled? Yeah, it's not called tripled.

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I wonder if when people hear about, hey, there's a travel warning to Japan because of bear attacks, if some of these people are like, sweet, let's go see what's going on with the bears. But they basically said, why is this happening? And the reality is, is the bear population, especially in North America, has exploded. In Massachusetts alone, 50 years ago, there were only 100 bears.

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Now there's 4,500. Is it because people used to hunt them and kill them and now they're a little more protected? And now they don't. Yeah, they're quite protected and there's quite a lot of bear hunts that have been cancelled over the years. So I think that is a big part. They didn't talk about that in the article because unfortunately it's not, it kind of gets people upset.

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And I mean, I'm a veterinarian, sort of, I'm pretty sure. And I like animals, definitely. But I don't...

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not support that's too negative i i still support and understand hunting especially for animals that are not obviously for animals that are not endangered and if done correctly hunting does control the animal population following state provincial guidelines permits making sure the numbers don't get culled too much like that fine what i mean i wouldn't do it personally i'm not going to murder an animal but the fact that hunters go out and do fine i can go to bed at night

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Right. But there's been across North America over the last decade or so, there's been a lot of bear hunts that have been canceled. And politicians are putting it on the ballot for city folk to vote on when it's the city folk that have to worry about it. It's the rural folk that have these sort of bear encounters.

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The other issue, though, is that bears have recognized that while there are natural food sources around, primarily like acorns, nuts, and berries have decreased their unnatural food sources like chickens and chicken coops and garbage and whatever, um, have increased. Um, and also crop yields have increased significant significantly around North America, uh,

Chapter 4: How have bear encounters changed in North America?

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Some people call them coyotes. You know, it's not a unique bear problem, wildlife and humans interacting. Yeah, I mean, in Toronto and a lot of the other cities across Canada, coyotes have flourished. They're attacking dogs, especially dogs that are off leash. And it's a similar problem that we've encroached into their space. We've taken away some of their space. Food is made available.

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They're becoming less afraid of people. In Toronto, they're hiring professional coyote hazing companies. Ooh, coyote hazing. Maybe I should go work for something like that. So basically scare him off, scare him off. A 67-year-old grandfather fails to show up for a meeting with his son at a local tire shop, sparking a desperate search. And he wouldn't be the only victim.

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I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hixt. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Season 8 drops April 21st. But you can hear the first story now, one month early, only on Amazon Music. He's here, he's handsome, he's got a beard, he is a veterinarian, and it is Pet Talk or Vet Talk, and Dr. Cliff Redford is the very person I'm talking about.

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Check out his podcast, Vet Life. It's about the life of a vet, probably. Cliff, welcome to the show. That's a good, it must be a good name because that is what it's about, the podcast. And I do have a very handsome face for radio and for podcasts. My podcast is audio only, so it works out very well. And there you have it. Cultural differences are always fun to discuss.

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And a new study looks at how veterinarians and animal welfare scientists vary.

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view animals and their welfare and their behavior in the uk and in japan i'm going to go on a tangent i watched a video on youtube so definitely it's true and science-based but it basically was people think animals make different noises in different parts of the world like i don't know what country but they think like dogs don't go woof woof they go arc arc and uh it's i always find cultural differences so fun and this is an interesting lens to look at it

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Yeah, I mean, I just thought this is not off topic, but it was not what I was expected to talk about, but I'll bring it up. Like, you know, I've talked about on my podcast, Spat Life with Dr. Cliff, that my wife is Greek. I go to Greece and her father lives in this tiny little village up in the mountain in this beautiful, idyllic setting. And he has roosters.

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And I would say cock-a-doodle-doo, right? That's the noise they make, cock-a-doodle-doo. And in French, it's Coco Rico. Yeah, for them, they're like, they don't say cock-a-doodle-doo. They say coo-coo-coo-roo. I couldn't even think about it. I was going to say curia-kee, but that's their name for Sunday, the day Sunday.

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But, you know, the joke is, do Greek roosters sound differently than Canadian roosters? I don't know. We've just turned their vocalization into English incorrectly in every language. I guess that's right. And we assume that we are correct because no, they must say it that way. And the, the Greek rooster is pronouncing it wrong. That's what's happening.

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